Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Practice of Forgiveness

“Practice?!” To most of us, the word
practice elicits thoughts of drudgery and repetition, images from childhood of
sitting for hours practicing scales on the piano, or standing at the foul line
shooting hundreds of free throws, or yet one more plié at the ballet barre. We
are taught that through practice we’ll get better at something, and once we’re
good at it, it will ultimately be fun and rewarding.

For instance, in learning to play
piano, before you can play a Beethoven Sonata, you must train your fingers to
move across the keys in a proscribed and controlled way, often through learning
scales. The movements have to become second nature, so you can eventually play
scales without even thinking. When you then move to actual musical pieces, the
finger skills required have been learned and can be applied to the making of
real music.

In a similar way one can practice
forgiveness. There are specific techniques you can learn, and through
repetition, you can improve these techniques, so that the process of forgiving
can become second nature. Of course, along with the technique, there needs to
be a willingness, and we’ll discuss this as part of practice as well.

The Definition of Practice

There are multiple definitions of
the word practice in the dictionary, but for our purposes we will look at two
of these.

Definition 2: the action or process
of performing or doing something: to put a scheme into practice.

In our piano example, the first
definition is the time we spend at the keyboard playing scales and musical
pieces over and over in order to improve our abilities. The second definition
relates to our need to find time and venues where we can perform our piano
skills, and reap the joys of making real music.

In regard to forgiveness, we find
these same two meanings of practice come into play. We need to learn how to
forgive, through the teachings of the Course, and we need to put forgiveness
into practice, overcoming the ego’s attempts to prevent us from forgiving.

The Technique of Forgiveness

Before we can practice forgiveness,
we must first learn how to forgive, a technique we can repeat over and over to
hone our skills of forgiveness. In reading the Course, the process of
forgiveness is presented in various ways, but for our purposes we’ll focus on a
specific technique that can be used repeatedly in many different situations.

This will involve three basic steps.
The first is to learn to connect with the Holy Spirit within our minds. Next we
will identify a specific non-loving thought where we know forgiveness is
required. Finally we will apply a simple procedure to forgive, using the help
of the Holy Spirit to overcome any resistance.

Step 1 – Connecting with the Holy Spirit

The first step in our technique is
learning how to connect with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is simply the
part of our selves that remembers our connection to God, the part of us that
knows only truth and knows only love.

The Holy Spirit is present within
all of our minds and can be perceived in different ways. Some may see a loving
God-like figure, others may see an inner guide, but no matter how you see the
Holy Spirit, you must look within the mind. There is nothing real outside the
mind, so the Holy Spirit, our connection to the Mind of God, must be found
there.

The first task on the path to
forgiveness is to experience this Holy Spirit, a little glimpse of the wonder
of God. Take a moment and think on the place in your mind where you know there
is peace and love available to you. You may initially only be able to feel this
place for a fleeting moment, before the ego fills your mind with all of its
non-loving thoughts, but by practicing this regularly you will begin more and
more to know and feel comfortable in this place.

Step 2 – Identifying a Non-Loving Thought

Once you’ve made the connection to
the Holy Spirit, no matter how small it may seem, you can begin the process of
forgiveness. The next step is to identify within your mind a non-loving
thought. This can be a thought of anger, fear, guilt, pain, or any other
thought where you feel upset or discomfort with someone or yourself or some
experience.

So let’s try an example. Think about
a non-loving thought you’ve had in the last day or two – any thought with
feelings of fear, anger, guilt, etc. associated with it. Bring that thought to
the front of your mind, focus on it intently. Feel all the emotions surrounding
it. If possible, imagine those emotions as something physical, like a dark,
roiling ball of ugliness.

Step 3 – Forgiving the Experience

Now holding that focus, begin to
forgive everything associated with this experience. We’ve learned from the
Course that all these feelings and thoughts are illusions presented to us by
our egos. Knowing that, forgive each person with any connection to these
thoughts, saying “I forgive…” followed by the person’s name, repeating it
several times. Then forgive the experience itself, saying “I forgive…” followed
by what you call the event, and then “… knowing this is just an illusion
created by my ego.”

Next take that roiling ball of
ugliness, with all the emotions tied into this experience and hand it off to
the Holy Spirit, who remembers your place in the Mind of God and knows these
emotions and thoughts are illusions with no power whatsoever. This releases the
experience, the emotions, and the non-loving false thoughts. The ego loses some
of its hold on you as your awareness of the Holy Spirit reminds you of where
you belong.

As one final step, say “I forgive
myself”, for it was you, as your ego self, that had all these thoughts and
emotions originally. By forgiving yourself you release yourself from the heavy
weight of responsibility for this negative experience, and because of this you
will naturally feel closer to the Holy Spirit.

Practicing Forgiveness

Once you have completed this, select
another non-loving thought and follow the same procedure. In this case you
might try something further in the past, perhaps something in a relationship
that has bothered you for years. The process is the same no matter when the
thought and associated emotions first occurred. It’s still an illusion and the
Holy Spirit stands ready to release you from it.

Now you’re ready to begin a regular
practice. Set aside a brief time every day to forgive a few of your non-loving
thoughts. After awhile, you can increase this process to several times a day as
it becomes more and more natural. Eventually you may find yourself doing it
without having to think about it too seriously.

Putting It All Into Practice – Continual Forgiveness

Once this daily practice becomes
second nature, you can begin to apply the technique in real-time to events in
your life. The ultimate goal is for you to realize when non-loving thoughts
occur and to instantly forgive them. This can lead to a state of continual
forgiveness, a state where every unpleasant experience in your life is
immediately turned around through forgiveness.

Think about it. All the fear, pain,
anger, sadness, guilt that you’ve felt over the years being instantly forgiven.
This state of continual forgiveness will lead to the state of Peace the Course
talks about, for if all your non-loving thoughts are being forgiven, the ego has
lost its hold on you, and all that will be left is love.

You will experience resistance along
the way, for the ego will not let go easily. So it’s important that you
maintain your intent and focus to overcome the obstacles placed in your way.
You must put forgiveness into practice, applying it to all the events of your
life, if you want to free yourself from the ego’s hold.

So maybe practice, practice,
practice isn’t such a bad thing after all. If practice, through both learning
the technique and performing the act, frees us from the ego and brings us
closer to the Love of God, why wouldn’t we do it? So get to work practicing
forgiveness. You have everything to gain.